Attaining Software Nirwana

A few days back I was lamenting about the demise of Desktop and Laptop computers in personal space. But despite the dominance of tablets and smart phones there are still some die-hard users of personal computers . For someone who spends a lot of time on her personal computer (not the one issued by the employer for office work), there is always the lurking fear of losing data and more importantly the fear of losing the kind of settings and configuration achieved over years.

When a computer boots smoothly and when every application is working in harmony with no conflict or friction it is sheer poetry or a ballet dance. There are no warnings, error messages  or undue delay ; it is just harmony and grace that you experience with every click . Even an anti virus shield , ostensibly to protect your computer can be a big nuisance, impinging on the processing power and memory , slowing down the whole system. The full power of all resources should be used for productive effort and not for  monitoring your own applications or files for  viruses or doing for-ever searches for some non-existent malware.

Whatever you need to do should be available at a right click; be it resizing an image, playing some music,convert to a different format  or printing  a booklet in the size you want. These tasks should not require a huge overhead but should be done with minimum system resources, in the background. Mostly such configurations are achieved through customized scripts .

Over years you end up with a customized system that you fall in love with. You simply don’t want to use any other system. Yet nothing is permanent. Gautama Buddha said  Change or impermanence is the essential characteristic of all phenomenal existence. So is it with your computer system. Bad things happen to good computers. Hard disks can crash for no fault of yours. There are times an user commits a digital harakiri by wiping off his own critical data or even a whole disk in the process of regular maintenance. 

That’s when one longs for  software nirwana. You can have a back up and back up to back up, on your hard disk, in the cloud and so on. That is ok for the data; for your audio, video and graphic files, but what about those wonderful themes you have set for your applications, the settings, configurations, passwords, aliases and scripts ? What about those rare third part applications you have collected over years ?

It would be good if you can have a portable device to save all settings too. You should have a portable device with which you can boot into any old computer, Linux, Mac or even Windows; 32 bit or 64 bit Architecture ; and turn that computer into your own ,only  for the period that you want to use it. On shutdown it is restored to its old ugly self ! This device along with another device, may be to store your data would get you to the ultimate Software Nirwana. 

After a lot of research followed by trial and error  I created a multiboot USB drive with four different operating systems. Porteus is one of the fastest, lightest OSs while Bodhi Linux is a complete light weight Installation for software nirwana  and it is aptly named “Bodhi Linux”. Boot-repair Disc, yes, you guessed it right; repairs the booting system!

Bodhi Linux with Moksha Desktop and Swami Panel can  give you the Ultimate Software Nirvana.

In the next post , I’ll attempt an How-to on creating a multi-OS boot USB Stick.

Cheers !